On a recent trip to Charleston, my husband and I were squabbling over everything from the settings of the air conditioner (I just do not understand why he likes cold air on his feet, I like my feet to stay warm) in the minivan to the radio channel we should listen to. Then, we bickered over picking the restaurant where we would eat. I wanted to eat at a place which was not too crowded so that we could get to my daughter’s band performance on time. He wanted to eat at the popular and critically acclaimed Hyman’s Seafood which always has long lines and I was extremely anxious that we might be late for my daughter’s show.

Few days before February fourteenth, my ten year old asked me for a needle and thread. I could not locate the box where I had stored all my sewing essentials so I told him that I would find it after some time. The box surfaced a few days later under a pile of dirty laundry but by then I had forgotten that Armaan had asked me for a needle and thread.

Ours was not at all an easy marriage. People from ‘Two States’ getting married was more an unthinkable concept in our country, thirty years back than now. His parents were strongly against having a ‘non Brahmin girl’ as their daughter in-law, my mother too did not consider the idea of ‘giving away’ her daughter to a‘non Bengali boy’ very acceptable.

Our house in Kolkata is in middle of a very congested locality. We wake up to the honking of school buses and auto rickshaws every morning. We live throughout the day with the scooter mechanic's stubborn attempts to tune the conked out two wheeler engines at the next door garage and we go to sleep listening to the clueless beats of our neighbour's son practicing his bass drums.

Half Truth ~

I was seventeen then. I was in class XI. Attending weddings, borrowing the silk sarees from Ma’s wardrobe, secretly reading novels from Desh and Anandabazar magazines in the afternoons, were few of my attractions then.

I slept today, in the afternoon, after a very long time. When I woke up, the evening had already set in. As I entered the kitchen and lighted the stove to make tea, I suddenly remembered that I had a dream and in it, I have seen myself sitting on a tram car, which was lazily running across the Kolkata Maidan. I do not know whether the tram route that ran from Esplanade, across the Maidan, to Gariahat, through Bhawanipur, Kalighat and Rashbehari crossing still exists.

My husband’s work took us to live in another country immediately after the marriage. We had a very simple and quiet life there. My son was born in a country where his mother struggled hard to speak in the native tongue of the land. His father of course, being a master of many languages, never had to face any such problem. . I was my son’s only companion and friend till we came back to settle in Kolkata, just before his fourth birthday.